LIC-BRIC ties—particularly trade, investment and development financing—have surged over the past decade. And the relationship could take on even more prominence after the global financial crisis, with stronger growth in the BRICs and their demand for LIC exports helping to buffer against sluggish demand in most advanced economies.

The potential benefits from LIC-BRIC ties are enormous.

But, so too are challenges and risks that must be managed if the LIC-BRIC relationship to support durable and balanced growth in LICs. Continue reading →

Many of the world’s macroeconomists—including here in the IMF—are currently busy reading the daily tea-leaves, attempting to divine whether the sputtering recovery in the advanced economies will hold, and gradually pick up steam, or fall back into the notorious “double dip.”

There is a huge amount at stake here, not only for the millions of unemployed in the developed world, but also for the many hundreds of millions of our fellow global citizens in developing countries who live in dire poverty, without access to proper health, education, or sanitation. The world’s economies are now closely interconnected, and the fate of those in poor countries is tied, increasingly, to that of the richest. Continue reading →